Who set him up?Who took him down?Who’s headed for another town?With his knock-down rifleAnd expense account?So much cash he doesn’t need to count?Who calls the shots?Who makes the plans?Who picks the targetsThat must bleedWho teaches the assassin’s creed

Loneliness, you swayed gentlyin a long skirt,Looked up, breathed words,cast your spell, and waitedfor it to take effect.You had not long to wait,I was eager for fulfillmentof illusion and not insensibleto flattery.Time passed, too fast,but enough to fit one foolish actafter another, making a historyout of the barest vignette.Oh Loneliness, the name of you,the thought of you, your image,your face and time and place,As blood flows from a woundthat's deep, as surely shall painfollow the memory of you.

A blue-gold flower is bloomingin the evening wind.I have been so long without you now,I forget whether you left by the easternor the western road.Why is it that the wind must come downthe mountains like this,To sway the willows at dusk?Perhaps if it could stop blowingI could begin to forget.

Life, the real dance of passionis happening today.No recess time declared,The fashion is to play and play and play.With the hated in the second show,And risk to self at the Intermezzo,Eating dainties in the opal glow.

It's a right wicked assembly,is it not? With the heirs and pretendersPushing for a spot,With the ladies in waitingand the magistrates toying with theirhair bobs and their delicates.

Listen, glisten, it's the price of admission,No cunning or guile is excessive.Feathers, flowers, idle hours, my darlingYou look so expressive.Drag out the regalia for a sweet saturnalia,and call in the freaks from the woods.Well one night in Sevilla,Ya' know it won't kill ya' Like a weekend in Granada could. That's good.

Now set down your knives,the meal's not served yet,And the more you wait,the more hungry you get,And pleasure deferredIs pleasure enhanced to thepitch of higher set, let's getInvolved now ladies and gentlemen --those waistcoats are confiningAnd corsets still more yet,But the masks should stay in placeLest we get unconfusedAnd pleasure be abortedOr anyone refuse. We'll rock now.

Do you get the meaning?Do you get the treat?Do you hear the fire squealing on your street?Do you hear the breaking of the garden gate?Do you hear their twisted voices singing songs of faith and hate? Those scum know how to rock.

At our pleasant little partyThe debutantes in lineHold out their crystal goblets for a sip of wine,Give up their delicate garmentsFor the promised priceGive up their tender bodiesOn a bed of ice. They're going to learn how to rock.

Now the iron-worker's askingA question of the priestWho's cleaning out his dinnerFrom between his twisted teeth:"Did you ever hear the storiesWhat they do in there?Do it to our childrenWell you know it's hardly fair.Do it with impunityDo it day and night.How can God abide it?You know that it's not right."And the priest says smiling cruelly"You're a very saintly man,"And walking both togetherHe takes him by the hand, says"Let's get the Devilby the old short hairsHang him up to squirmWith his hooves in the air,Convict that hairy bastardIn the holy cross-hair sights,Eliminate the problemIn one sweet, bloody night." That bastard surely can rock.

I found my flower in the pale moonlightHer shade of lipstickwas absolutely right,Her powdered cheek was exquisitely fair,And while I stood thereWondering how to dare,She turned to me and blew a kissthrough the air.Her curled hair rose like a coronet,Still more adorned her shoulders in ringlets,Soft breasts arched up with staysMore lovely yet. I pledged my kingdomas our eyes first met. That girl could rock.

She was a prize worth killing for,And at her word I woulddo much more,Cheat, lie and steal, and poison too,When it's a matter of the blood, you do.Fifteen years laterOn my deathbed too soon,The shadows cruelly creep around the room,Those I have schemed to bring to benefitHave twice betrayed me andI feel regret.Those pale bodies on those beds of ice,Those bloody trinketsand my antiseptic knife,The scent of evil that has tracked me there,No message waiting after all these years.Oh gentle victimsWho had been my loves,Can't speak a word of mercy in my name,I broke you all upon the wheel of passionAnd all your kindnessLike your blood's been drained.If only I could turn the knifeupon myself. Cut out this heartof cruelty. Expose it to the sunand let the life run down my arm.Save all of them from meand me from harm.If I could warn themI would be right back --Dark-browed minions shake their heads,My tongue goes slack.Doors open wide for methat no one else can see. My turn to rock.

Gathering of many smaller flows, of trickles and drips,all proceeding from somewhere above, from the peak of sloping granitewe call Mount Ashland --Down in Hornbrook they depend on you for all their water --Up here we splash in hollow bowls of rough, rust colored rock.Nearby the flow's exposed seams of grey clay that crumbles to make a nice,rough soap or body paint, or just liesthere getting soft on the bank. There's seats of sculpted sandstone and a bathtub for children, and a short,rough slide, all literally a stone'sthrow from a logging road: for nakedhippies only; we know your secrets,Cottonwood, you can't hide them.

I've found the cool, fresh spots wheredeer make the damp earth smooth, restingintimate with you in a narrow, steepravine shaded with willows.I've sat next to where two flows meetto make you, and listened to the soundof their union.I've walked further up and seenyour tributaries blocked with logsand also the shade stripped off where forty-footpines and cedars stood, protecting from the sun'sheat the tiny, vital flow that is yours by right.I've looked at the skidder trackswhere tall, slender treeswere dragged away in chains.Only the crooked ones, the twisted ones,the dwarfed and gnarled ones are left,proving the truth of the Taoist's argument.

Oh, Cottonwood, I know you're all right,and you'll make it even though you dried up altogether this summer for the firsttime in years,You're running now at least eighty gallonsa minute,And I love you and all your rocks and boulderslying bare in the steep ravines;I love how you make dams and pools out ofrotten old snags;I love you and your oaks and alders thatgrow so close to the crumbling bank thatin rainy times they sometimes fall into youor perhaps clean across, making bridgesacross the muddy torrent that is you in midwinter.

Further down, where you earn your namegiving life to white-barked cottonwoodswith leaves that whisper, exposingsilver-dollar undersides, down thereyou're some else's,But here at the West Fork I know your ways;I've spoken intimately with youby means of cups and buckets,We've held long-distance conversationsthrough the hose of the waterpump;You've washed my dishes and my bodyand those of my children innumerable timeswith your pure, clear hands,And in the midst of summer heatI can lay my head in your lapwhile you pour a stream of water over it,washing out the heat and the thoughtswith a roaring of bubbles and wet sound

The cold wrings me out and pulls me together, clears my eye and washesthe dust from my ears; I can hearyou then and I listen for true wordsthat no one understands.

I think perhaps that love is like this,that I give myself to you walking barefootup your long, straight shallow stretches,slipping on the smooth rocks, andI won't think about how I heardthere once were trout in you beforeFruitgrowers built a dam they neededto use you --I won't think about it, Cottonwood,as if it meant that you were losing ground:I'll remember the petrified branchesscattered on your banks,And the ancient whispers I heardamong the alders when I touched them,As if I'd been stirring Grandmother's bones,and I'll remember then that your young faceis ancient. I won't cry for your wounds:I won't disturb the spiritswith my foolish crying, Cottonwood;I'll just be quiet, Cottonwood,I who breathe briefly, here with youwho will be flowinglong after I am gone.

Borrowing the magician's hat,and upturned cuffs,And a certain flair with the audience,Introducing my lovely assistant,Invisible as ever but lovely nonetheless,I present myself to youAs what I am.

For my opening and closing act tonightI will be everybody and somebodyAnd nobody and you.I will examine parallelograms,enteogens, exorcism ...Making reference to the placement of furniture In your living room.

I will tell you the story of a broken heartand of the girl who broke it more thoroughly.

I will tell you how my lovely assistantcame to be.

We will walk till you are lost in the mirror-landof mutating forms.

You will feel desire pulling you on throughColored sand,rainbow fountains,Drifting clouds,Across valleys perfect and serene.

You will journey far and re-emerge toRed lipschromed steel,Cold leather.

You will greet the mirror,Motherlover, angeldoubter ...Poison popsickle sucker,Lick and roller,Tide rider ...A ship burns on the sea at midnight,And she is among the dead.

Kay Kay Kay tookmy bay-bee away -- !protestants stole my sweetie, catholix rippedoff my condoms, bankofamerica repo-ed my Brain.Blue blood thrift executive slimetook Mother Mary for a ride in a credit card scam(mastah-charge and veeza downthedrain)SHE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT NO MORE !She rips off her bra in an agony of relief,AND WITH A BEATIFIC SMILE ON HER FACEtakes out Wayne Newton, Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reaganin that order, with three measured blasts.Then it's on to others, annihilating them beforethey can see her, making kitty litter out of headlinesthat advertise a "second coming": she only comes ONCE.Rupert Murdock and Patty Hearst will have to findsome other flabby universe to screw upnow that she's back, asserting her BIG MOUTH --